Improving habitat and removing invasive brush?

[zuren]

I own roughly 5 acres in SE MI and despite it being a small lot, I have a lot of deer traffic passing through the back side. Most of this area (~3 acres) is inundated with invasive buckthorn and I have finally gotten to the point to start working on eliminating and backfilling with native plantings and improving the area in general. I will be stopping soon, but I have been going around and spraying herbicide to kill some of the bigger trees; the stuff stinks so I don't want to be spooking deer with it. I'll resume spraying once hunting season is over. If you haven't dealt with buckthorn, you have to kill it or dig it up, otherwise it comes back 10x worse.

My question for anyone who has dealt with large amounts of brush - what did you end up doing with it? I've been considering my options:

1. Stack it into brush piles - This will work for some of it but there is a lot of buckthorn, some of the trees are big (6-8" in diameter and 20+ ft. tall), and space will quickly run out if I do nothing but brush piles. This will form some habitat for rabbits and other critters and I could place them strategically to funnel game toward me. It is also the most ecologically friendly approach, but the space issue is a big one.

2. Burn it - I would have to be careful and burn during low risk days but this would guarantee I would get rid of whatever I needed. I don't love this approach due to the carbon impact of burning.

3. Chipper - I could rent or buy a large, towable wood chipper. This would reduce everything down to almost nothing but it is also the most expensive option and a great deal of the buckthorn I need to get rid of is on the opposite side of a stream from the closest point I could get the chipper.

My guess is that I will probably do a combo of the 3 depending on location on the property but wanted to hear feedback and ideas from others.

Thanks!

 

[H20fwler]

I like option #1. I always stack my tops into brush piles when cutting firewood or knocking down locust trees, great habitat and I love bunny hunting. The 6"-8" stuff you can cut up for firewood then pile the tops, I would cut it and hit the stumps with Crossbow.

 

[JFK52]

I clear cut a 5 acre black locust grove 23 years ago. I had a D5 push all the down trees into large brush piles. I burned them in the middle of the winter when there was a good snow cover. I had the stumps removed from the burn areas and have been using them ever since for food plots.
I have buckthorn on my home acreage. I cut them and treat the stump immediately with Tordon to kill the buggers. Real nasty invasive.
I never considered the chipper option. Too labor intensive for any large amount of brush.
I like brush piles for all the benefits they provide for birds and other critters. I try to have some of them around on my land where ever possible.

 

[Bill]

I vote brush piles or burn it. Don't sweat the carbon, thing Al Gores airplane emits more carbon in a day than your 5 acres of burning brush will.

Chipping sounds labor intensive to me.

 

[Natty Bumppo]

I'm with Bill...burn it or stack it. You're spraying herbicide but are worried about your carbon footprint? Besides, anyway you do it....the carbon in that brush will return to the atmosphere. There's no stopping that. Might just take longer. Do what makes you happy. I personally burn my brush piles. I then plant hundreds and hundreds of natives to off-set what I've removed.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Natty's right ^^^^ about the carbon getting back into the ecosystem. Carbon goes back into the air even if a tree rots on the ground.

We've gone through this at my camp. We made some brush piles of the tops, using them for cover and free fencing around stumps so stump shoots and seedlings have protection from browsing deer. We cut the 4" to 10" stuff for camp firewood. We planted desirable things - spruce, ROD, & hawthorn, mainly - in the cut areas. Between our plantings and natural regeneration, we're on a good path now. I even caged some of our stumps so the stump sprouts can get growing to make thicker cover and browse. It's free.

I don't know if buckthorn has lingering berries or seed, but if so, would chipping it spread the seed/berries and make your problem worse ?? Not familiar with buckthorn.

 

[zuren]

Thanks for the replies!

Natty's right ^^^^ about the carbon getting back into the ecosystem. Carbon goes back into the air even if a tree rots on the ground.

We've gone through this at my camp. We made some brush piles of the tops, using them for cover and free fencing around stumps so stump shoots and seedlings have protection from browsing deer. We cut the 4" to 10" stuff for camp firewood. We planted desirable things - spruce, ROD, & hawthorn, mainly - in the cut areas. Between our plantings and natural regeneration, we're on a good path now. I even caged some of our stumps so the stump sprouts can get growing to make thicker cover and browse. It's free.

I don't know if buckthorn has lingering berries or seed, but if so, would chipping it spread the seed/berries and make your problem worse ?? Not familiar with buckthorn.

Buckthorn is some of the nastiest stuff I've ever encountered. It is highly branched and has thorns on the ends of the twigs as well as randomly on branches and trunks that are 1-2 inches long. It was used in Europe to create hedge rows and living fences. It is bad for our native owls and other birds of prey since they can't fly through it. It also serves as refuge to a insect pest that goes after soybeans (can't remember the bug exactly). If you cut it off, it sends out suckers within a week or 2. The thorns also seem to harbor bacteria or something else since any scratches or stabs generally end up infected almost immediately. I wear welding gloves that go almost to my elbows and heavy Carhartt clothing to handle it, regardless of the weather. From what I've read in forestry/conservation forums, the buckthorn berries tend not to fair well going through a chipper. I'm not really sure why as they can easily pass through. Once they drop, they can lay dormant for up to 5 years if conditions are not ideal. The roots are shallow so you can pull some of it up, but disrupting the soil helps dormant seeds get established so I'm trying to avoid that. Once I remove some of these larger trees, I'll be opening up the canopy so I expect an explosion of buckthorn seedlings in the spring where sunlight gets to the ground. I'm using trichlopyr (same as Garlon 4) mixed at 10% conc. that has proven to be very effective so far through cut stump, basal bark, and foliar application. My priority is the fruiting, female trees (buckthorn has male and female trees).

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

IMO you dont have enough acreage to pile it up. You should be trying to maximize the amount of land you have for growing good species. Nothing is going to grow under your brush piles. Cut it up, burn it, and have it out of your life forever.

 

[Lee Haakenson]

Did 16 acres cottonwood removal in a pine/hardwood planting. I just cut and let it lay on the ground. Rots quicker that way and a lot less effort

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

 

[almanac12]

I own roughly 5 acres in SE MI and despite it being a small lot, I have a lot of deer traffic passing through the back side. Most of this area (~3 acres) is inundated with invasive buckthorn and I have finally gotten to the point to start working on eliminating and backfilling with native plantings and improving the area in general. I will be stopping soon, but I have been going around and spraying herbicide to kill some of the bigger trees; the stuff stinks so I don't want to be spooking deer with it. I'll resume spraying once hunting season is over. If you haven't dealt with buckthorn, you have to kill it or dig it up, otherwise it comes back 10x worse.

My question for anyone who has dealt with large amounts of brush - what did you end up doing with it? I've been considering my options:

1. Stack it into brush piles - This will work for some of it but there is a lot of buckthorn, some of the trees are big (6-8" in diameter and 20+ ft. tall), and space will quickly run out if I do nothing but brush piles. This will form some habitat for rabbits and other critters and I could place them strategically to funnel game toward me. It is also the most ecologically friendly approach, but the space issue is a big one.

2. Burn it - I would have to be careful and burn during low risk days but this would guarantee I would get rid of whatever I needed. I don't love this approach due to the carbon impact of burning.

3. Chipper - I could rent or buy a large, towable wood chipper. This would reduce everything down to almost nothing but it is also the most expensive option and a great deal of the buckthorn I need to get rid of is on the opposite side of a stream from the closest point I could get the chipper.

My guess is that I will probably do a combo of the 3 depending on location on the property but wanted to hear feedback and ideas from others.

Thanks!

Sounds like money is an issue, but if you can find and afford one, you can rent a forestry mower. This is also known as a Fecon mower. It's a trackloader with a rotating drum head that has carbide teeth. I did this on my property and you wouldn't even know the buckthorn were there.

 

[nateb440]

I cut and sprayed 50 acres of Japanese bush honeysuckle. Nearly killed me. But the forest is beautiful now! Tons of little oaks sprouting up. I piled a lot of it, even bought a older Vermeer chipper and chipped the whole top of the ridge, but that took a ton of time. Piles are your best bet. Great for small game. Two years after I have grouse frequenting the forest! Good luck. Take the time to do it right and the rewards will come in years that follow.

 

[almanac12]

If I were to do it again, I would slow waaaayyy down. I took on too much at once. See what grows well and fast for a few years. There's probably buckthorn adjacent to your property, so it's going to keep seeding in. You'll need something that can compete with it for canopy to slow it down.

 

[JFK52]

Look into joining the Ruffed Grouse Society. They have a program where you can have a tracked bobcat with a rotating drum head like almanac12 describes come to your land at a greatly reduced hourly rate. I had this done the last time I went after the black locust growth that occurred after the clear cut I did years ago. However, treat every stump with Tordon or all you are doing is making the buckthorn grow more shoots from the stump. This process worked great for me. I had two friends and myself that went after the stumps when the bobcat had moved to work on another area. Get to the stumps when they are fresh cut and put the Tordon on the outer cambium layer. The machine does not grind trees up, rather it pushes them down and parts them from the roots. The left over locust trees gradually decomposed and today there is no evidence of this job being done other than the lack of locust growth in the areas treated.

 

[almanac12]

You can spray the resprout foliage with Garlon 3a (Element 3a or Triclopyr 3a off label). Just go easy. I had some success with mechanical mowing followed by that. You could also try a more aggressive concentration of Glyphosate (minimum 3%) in a wetland formulation (i.e. Round Up Custom or Alligare Glyphosate 5.4), which may have less soil residual and less impact on mature native trees. But the resprouts can be slow to respond to that.

If the site is less sensitive, i.e. well drained upland, Crossbow is an effective ester formulation of 2,4-d and triclopyr. Just be extra careful to keep it off of desirable trees. That stuff works fast.

 

[almanac12]

One other idea that sounded good... go after them in late February. This is when they are the weakest because all of their resources are going into budding out. Painting the stump with concentrated gly (minimum 25%) will still kill them. And there's lesz risk to native vegetation.